


Raising Dawn

by wekingsandprettythings



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Found Family, Multi, Post-Canon Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:35:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22352689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wekingsandprettythings/pseuds/wekingsandprettythings
Summary: Every new beginning comes from some other beginnings end. Poe's taken it upon himself to house and raise the ex-stormtrooper kids who've lost their families, and in a sense, he made his own.
Relationships: Poe Dameron & Finn & Rey, Poe Dameron/Finn
Comments: 6
Kudos: 48





	Raising Dawn

**Author's Note:**

> for my friend Rey on twitter
> 
> just a disclaimer,,, i wrote what i would have wanted to see, i did as much research as i could but you'll find a lot of this isn't cannon and it's probably made up from my mind. i hope you like it any way.

The first child they found was on Exegol, a small boy who was issued the number and told he would become a stormtrooper one day, just like the rest of the children they eventually found. They brought him back to the jungle moon of Ajan Kloss with the rest of the surviving resistance members. He walked off Lando’s ship, 6 years old at most. He was scared, he was sad, but he seemed to warm up to them all the more he wandered around.

He slowly walked up to Rey, Finn and Poe where they were speaking about everything that had happened. “I heard the voices of the Jedi who came before me, people I have come to know now. Obi-wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, Mace Mindu, so many powerful Jedi came to me, to believe in me. To help me.” 

“Wow,” he said, causing them all to turn around. “You’re a Jedi?” 

Rey smiled at him, “yeah, I am.” 

“Look,” he said softly, holding his hand out and raising a rock from the ground to his hand, seemingly with the force. “You can do that too, right?” 

They all looked at him, dumbfounded, both Rey and Finn nodded.

“What’s your name?” Poe asked, getting down to eye level with him. 

“DO-1134,” he replied.

“You know, Finn was a stormtrooper, his name was FN-2187. I helped him pick a real name,” he said with his classic Poe Dameron smile. “Would you like to pick a name?” 

“FN, Finn,” he whispered to himself, thinking over how the name came to be. “What was that name you said before?” he asked Rey. “Kenobi?” 

“Yeah, Obi-wan Kenobi.”

“What about Kendo?” he asked softly. 

“Kendo is a wonderful name,” Poe smiled. “I’m Poe, that’s Finn and Rey. Welcome.” 

Lando reached out to them with an idea shortly after being reacquainted with Jannah that day. He had said he wanted to redirect his efforts to help all the parents who lost children and help them find each other again. They knew all too well how it felt to be without one another, wondering if they were okay and if they’d ever see each other again. 

He got in a ship with her, and they set off first to find more children like Kendo and then to find their families. Poe offered them a safe place in the middle while they waited, knowing that was what Leia would want him to do. To love and support children without their parents, the way she loved him growing up. 

-

Kendo sat with them in the Falcon a few weeks later, they watched from the window as Rey walked into the desert with BB-8 in search for the old Skywalker house. “Where is she going?” 

“We lost 2 of our leaders, General Organa and her brother, Master Luke. This was Luke’s home, it seems like the best place to pay tribute to them,” Poe explained. 

“Where is our home going to be?”

“Um, we’re looking for somewhere, a nice place where we can find more kids like you before we find your families.” 

“I don’t have a family.”

“Yes, you do. Either you have one waiting for you or you let us become your family,” Finn smiled down at him, “if I’ve learned anything from being here, it’s that these people become more your family than anyone else.” 

Rey was going to take a few hours, leaving Chewbacca to want to play Dejarik with Finn while Poe sat in the captain’s chair, Kendo in his lap, showing him all the buttons and controls. “There’s an old legend I heard from the original owners of this ship when I was your age, would you like to hear it?” 

He nodded. 

“Well, Han Solo was a famous smuggler, eventually he helped Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker defeat Darth Vater, but when this story took place, he was just a boy looking for a way to make money for his own ship one day.

“He joined a band of smugglers in search for some Coaxium, and the only place he could find some was on a planet called Kessel, however, there it was only available in it’s purest form and they had limited time to get it reformed once they stole it. In order to do that they had to do the Kessel run as fast as possible, which at the time was in 20 parsecs.

“But!” he shouts dramatically, “their droid, L3 who was supposed to help them navigate their way out was badly damaged! Leaving them without a way to properly get to where they needed to go! That was until Lando Calrissian had the brilliant idea to plug her into the ships hard drive.” 

He hugged Kendo close, looking around carefully like someone was watching them, “and some people say that at night, when the ships all quiet, you can still hear her giving them directions, but not always to the way out.”

“Stop scaring the boy!” Finn said from the doorway of the cockpit. 

“It’s a right of passage!” he argued. “Han scared me with it when I was little, he needs to hear it too.”

Finn just shook his head and walked back to his game, leaving Kendo still sat on Poe’s lap, looking out at the window.

“So Han Solo went from being a bad guy to a good guy?” Kendo asked. 

“Kinda,” Poe said, “he didn’t believe that everyone was only good or only bad. He’s seen too many good people with a bad reputation and vice versa.”

“So even because I was going to be a stormtrooper, I can be good again?” he asked again, a lot softer. 

“If you feel it in your heart that you’re a good person, then that’s what you are.” 

“I’m a good guy,” he smiled. 

“Yeah,” Poe agreed, placing his cheek on Kendo’s head, holding him close, “we’re all good guys.”

-

Rey came back later after the sun had set and Kendo was asleep in the other room. “That was really nice.”

“Are you okay?” Finn asked her.

She nodded, “I feel at peace. Like I’m where I’m supposed to be.”

“I still have something to tell you, and I don’t know if it’ll disturb your peaceful feeling but you need to know Rey, I,” Finn said softly. Everyone was looking at him rather seriously, “I have the force too.”

“I know, I can feel it when I’m around you,” she said with a soft smile, she held her hand out for him to take it. “When we get to where we’re going, I can show you what I know.” 

“Speaking of which,” Poe cut in, “where are we going to go? We need somewhere big enough for all the children Lando is going to end up finding.”

“Excuse me, sir,” C3P0 said from the hallway. “I was searching my memory for a place that would be adequate for you, I remembered mister solo and the general have a large home on Chandrila that would be available to you.” 

“Oh yeah,” Poe said, remembering his childhood there. “I forgot about that place, I haven’t been there in years.” 

“Leia would want us there, we should tell some of the others. Then they can join us too,” Rey suggested. “Rose and Kaydel don’t have any family either. We should all make that our home.” 

“We’ll need all the help we can get with the children that will come.” Finn said, “It wasn’t easy for me to break out of the conditioning, it’s still hard for me to understand that I’m free and okay, they’re not going to be easy no matter how little time they spent in training.” 

“I’ll set a course, we’ll go right there,” Rey said with a tight-lipped smile. “You guys can go sleep or talk or whatever it is that you do. Chewy can stay with me.” 

Poe couldn’t help but smile as they reached the closet at the back of this ship. A place that he’d go as a child with Ben to play dress up in Lando’s old capes.

“I was worried that you were in love with her,” he said softly. 

Finn laughed at him then, “I do love her, but she’s my family. I felt close to her when we met because of the force, and she was there for me when I thought you had died.”

Poe wrapped Finn up in his arms, he put his face in his neck like he always did when he hugged him. “I love you,” he whispered.

“I love you too.” 

-

Chandrila was a small world, green land and blue seas. Rolling hills and calming water that mesmerized them as they flew through the land on their way to Leia’s old home. It was on the water, she said she loved it so much because the city felt like Alderaan but the lakeside felt like her birth mothers home on Naboo. 

The house was dusty and empty, it didn’t have the same lively ness to it that Poe remembered from his childhood. But that wouldn’t be hard to recreate, himself Finn and Rey have the same dynamic that Han and Leia had back then. Loving, fun, serious yet go with the flow. 

It was going to be okay.

It took some time, but they cleaned it up. They added more beds to the few bedrooms that there already was and turned the study and closets into bedrooms too. They were prepared for as many children as possible, Poe would even sleep on the ground if it meant a child had a bed. 

He wasn’t sure where this sudden fatherly instinct came from, but he loved it. He felt like he finally found something that he was fully good at. Sure, he was a wonderful pilot, he was a good commander, but he was an absolutely amazing guardian. 

Lando brought them many children. From the ages of 2 to 16, there were kids in need of a home before they found their families. At first, they had no way to find what children belonged to who. 

An old friend of Lando’s suggested they use a version of a bounty hunter tracking fob, they’d show a hologram of the child so that when Lando met with families of missing children they’d be able to pick them out of the bunch. The Mandalorian man helped them set everything up and even joined Lando in finding the children. 

Dan Djarin was a good man, he helped reunite lots of children with their families. 

-

Over time they went from having 20-30 at a time to only having 6 full time. 

The 6 children they had left had been with them almost the whole time. They would likely stay with them forever. Poe didn’t have the heart to tell the youngest ones, but there was a very high chance that their families had died the day they were kidnapped, and that they’d never see them again. The older ones understood, they felt sad at first but understood that the remaining resistance members their family now. 

Every single child that came in sat down with Poe and picked a name. Like Finn and Kendo, every single child understood that sometimes they could create a name for themselves based on their old stormtrooper number. It wasn’t permanent, they could go back to their birth names when they found their families, but for now, it was a place holder. It was something that made them feel like a person, instead of a robot.

A little girl was brought in one day, she clung to Chewbacca as he walked with her off the falcon. She was only 4, the youngest they had ever had. She didn’t speak a lot, but luckily she still had her tags on her. Unlike the other children they had. 

IR-1019. 

Poe and Chewbacca sat with her later that day after she had a nice lunch and a long nap. “Do you know your name?” he asked. 

She shook her head, she pointed to the tag he was holding and snuggled into Chewy a bit more. “Would you like a new name? A person name, like Rey, or Kendo?” 

“Yeah,” she whispered. 

“Is there anything you like? Anything you’ve seen that you’d want to make a name from? You can use the letters in your number.” 

“I like the water outside,” she whispered. “I ‘member water, at home.” 

“Did you know that the name Iara means lady of the lake?” he asked her with a smile. 

“Can I be the lady of the lake?” 

Poe nodded, “Iara is a very pretty name.” 

“Thank you, Poe,” she smiled. Her first little smile. 

He moved from where she was beside Chewy, her little brown pigtails bouncing as her feet hit the ground. Her beautiful brown skin shining in the daylight, her smile was so pure and kind. She gave him a quick hug before running off to play with Kendo in the garden. 

He kept a close eye on them even though Rey was over there as well. 

In the garden outside the room that was once Han and Leia’s, she had planted flowers for them. And a rock that she engraved;

‘Dedicated to General Organa, Han Solo, and Jedi Ben Solo. for their valiant efforts in the resistance that helped bring balance to the galaxy once again.’

“It’s beautiful,” Poe said, rubbing his hand on her back. 

“I miss them, I barely even knew them. But I miss them,” she whispered, crying softly. “I can’t imagine how you feel, you grew up with them.” 

“My family is very large because of them,” he replied, softly that no one else heard them. “They brought so many people into my life so that when they passed, we were all still family. Their legacy lives on, their love is in all of us now, and we’ll be okay.” 

She turned around and hugged him. “I always wanted a brother.” 

He laughed lightly, holding her close. “A sister wouldn’t be that bad.”

-

NE-3002 was a 14-year-old girl, she walked off the falcon with MX-1136. Both of them were found in a crashed star destroyer near Exegol. They were very grateful, they hated the first order as most people did, they couldn’t wait to feel free again. 

For the first day that they were on Chandrila with them, they let the girls look around. They went on walks, they swam in the lake, they had lots and lots of food. They were happy, but then it became time for Poe to sit down with them and ask them about their names.

He sat down with NE-3002 first. She looked a lot like him, tan skin, curly brown hair, and a very large scar on her arm. 

“Do you remember anything from before you were taken?” 

She nodded lightly, “it comes back to me in bits and pieces. Like I know we’re from Mandalore, I know my mom died trying to save me, but I don’t remember my name, and I don’t know what year it is, or how long they had me.” 

“The conditioning they did was very deep, it might take a while to remember. But you don’t have to try and remember. Sometimes remembering is more painful than forgetting,” he said, trying to make her feel better. 

“Is this the part where we pick my name?” she asked, “I know how Kendo picked his name, and how Finn got his. And I think I know mine.” 

“Yeah?” he smiled, loving the tradition that he started with these kids. “What were you thinking?” 

“Well, I’m from Mandalore, and I heard that once there was a queen there named Queen Satine. My number was NE, so I was thinking of keeping that in my name,” she explained, like she had been thinking of it for a while. “I like Delphine.” 

“That is a beautiful choice,” he smiled. “There is a Mandalorian helping Lando find children, next time he’s in you should meet. He might know of your family.” 

“Thank you,” she said as she stood up. “Should I call Max in to talk to you?” 

“Max?” he asked.

“Yeah, when we were on the destroyer, her number was too much to keep yelling when I needed her. MX-1136 is a mouthful, so I started calling her Max,” she explained to him. 

“Makes perfect sense,” he smiled, “I guess she doesn’t need to come to talk then if she has a name but tell her I’m always here if either of you needs someone.” 

-

NF-2203, a 16-year-old boy, was found where Jannah had run off to on the moon of Endor. He was on the mission to drop off Kylo when he fought Rey, but he couldn’t do it anymore. He said he felt the energy of the other ex-troopers and couldn’t stay. He survived off the land, he felt happy. 

He was okay there for 6 months till he was found. Now he quietly sits in the garden on Chandrila and meditates, he says the anger he feels for how his life turned out gets too intense, and he needs to sit down and forget it. It doesn’t always work but he tried very hard. He doesn’t want to ever be angry like the people he worked for. 

After a few days, he finally sat down with Poe and Rey to talk, “I have something for you,” he said to Rey. 

“I see you tend to the garden every day. I have seen you talk to Kylo Ren through the memorial you made for them. I can feel the love you had for their family, and I think you should have this,” he reached into the bag that he brought from Endor’s moon. 

He pulled out Kylo’s lightsaber. “I saw him throw it into the water, I reached out for it in shock, not wanting him to lose it. I was still a stormtrooper, my mission was to watch him and make sure he defeated you. Upon reaching for it, it came to me. It washed up on shore at my feet a few minutes later. You should have it.” 

He handed it to her. She held it, she ran her hand over it, turning it around to look at it better. “The memorial site is for my friend Ben,” she said softly. “This wasn’t Ben’s. Kylo was manipulated into being who he was. I don’t think he ever fully made his own decisions till he threw this into the ocean. This doesn’t represent Ben. He wouldn’t want it here.” 

“I’ve just held onto it because I knew if you didn’t want it, you’d find a way to dispose of it so that no one else can use it,” he explained, his face was soft. He reminded Poe of Ben when he was around 13. Before he went to train with Luke full time. 

He even looked like Ben. Long brown hair, brown eyes to match. Freckles from the sunlight. He was tall and slender, he must have lost his muscle from being stranded, but that just made him more like teenage Ben. This kid made him miss him so much. 

“Do you remember anything from before you rebelled?” Poe asked. 

“No, it’s completely dark in that part of my memory.” 

“Do you have a name that you’d like us to call you while you stay here?” 

“I was thinking Sabé?” he said softly. “It might be silly, but seeing him get rid of the lightsaber, and it coming to me made me feel like Sabé was the best choice for me.” 

Poe was so proud of all the kids who came in knowing who they wanted to be, “Sabé is a great choice, welcome to our family.” 

Poe stood up with him to leave, Rey was twisting the lightsaber in her hands and staring at it closely. “Sabé would you mind staying here with me for a moment?” 

“Sure,” he smiled, tight-lipped and anxious. 

Poe continues to walk away, far enough to give them space but close enough to listen. 

“You have the force too?” 

“Lot’s of us did. I think they stole us on purpose, to keep up from training and allowing Kylo to be the most powerful.”

“If you’d like to train, Kendo and I meet at Dawn every morning in the garden. You can join us if you wish.” 

“I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

Poe smiled, seeing Rey redirect her efforts to train as Luke and Leia did before her, it was beautiful. She found her family, she found her purpose. She was a wonderful person, a wonderful teacher, a wonderful friend. 

-

When CP-0017 came in he was very timid and shy. He didn’t want to talk to anyone. They all tried, he wasn’t interested in taking. They left him alone after a few tries, telling him when he was ready he could come to them. 

Next door, however, Lieutenant Connix had been communicating with other resistance members. She had called them, they were sending her messages and radio calls. He stood in her doorway and watched as she worked. 

“Hey, buddy,” she smiled. “Are you interested in this kinda stuff?” 

He nodded lightly. 

“Did they teach you how to communicate when you were a trooper?” 

“Yeah,” he said in a soft voice. He moved in closer to her, looking at all her technology in amazement. “They never let me touch the real ones, only the teaching tools.”

“Well, I have to make a call to Lando to see his progress, would you like to help?” she asked him. 

“Yes please, ma’am,” he smiled. 

“Oh buddy,” she smiled back, “you can call me Connix, or Kaydel, whatever feels right.” 

For the first time, he looked like he felt safe. 

He knew all the buttons, he found Lando’s frequency and set everything up for her to make her call. “Well done buddy,” she said, putting out her hand to give him a high five. “I know it’s been kinda scary, everything you’ve been through is really rough, but I’m always here if you want to escape and play around with some tech.” 

“Thank you,” he smiled.

“What should I call you?” she asked him, getting down to sit at his level and look at his soft blue eyes.

“Cooper,” he said softly. 

“Coop for short?” she asked. 

“Yeah, that would be cool!” 

Poe had passed the door and witnessed their meeting, he smiled at him finally opening up to someone. “You know,” he said softly. “If you’d like to be a mentor to him, or even watch him in while he’s here, you can.”

“Yeah?” Kaydel asked.

He nodded, “you have an extra room, we’ll have a bed sent over. It’ll be good for you both to have someone.” 

Kaydel had been sad without the others. Without Leia as a mentor, without her friends to hang out with, without the family she lost before she joined the resistance. This was what she needed, she needed her own family again, and so did Coop.

-

The sun rose like a fire across the sky. The rays made their way through the small cracks in the blinds and somehow perfectly laid across Finn’s back, illuminating him in a gorgeous glow. Poe was sitting up, drinking the strongest mug of warm caf that he’s ever had. There was only a short period of time before the children woke up and wondered in and started asking about the plans for the day. 

He didn’t think that 2 years after the events of Exegol that he’d be living on a planet he visited as a small child, with the man he loves, raising children who were once stolen. He felt himself loving the children like they were his own family a lot faster than he ever expected himself to. 

The youngest came knocking at the door first, “Poe?” her tiny voice said as the wooden door squeaked open. 

“Come on up Iara,” he whispered with a smile, putting his mug off to the side and holding her in his arms. 

“Morning,” she yawned as she settled against his chest, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. 

Finn rolled over then too, he looked up at them and smiled. “Good morning.” 

“I have a question,” she asked. 

“What is it, sweetheart?” Poe said, rubbing his hand on her back softly and watching as the thought of what to say. 

“Are you my dads now?” 

He smiled wide, Finn laughed and sat up. He wrapped his arms around both of them. “Yeah, I guess we are.” 

“And that means Kendo, Max, Del and Sabé are my brothers and sisters?” she asked again, “does that make Rey my aunt or my sister?” 

“She’d be more like an aunt,” Poe confirmed. “So would Keydel.” 

“And Lando is my grandpa!” she cheered. 

“He’s gonna love that,” Finn laughed. 

“We’re one big family now.” 

They were a family. He found his family, and it felt perfect.

**Author's Note:**

> after return of the jedi, han and leia moved to chandrila and had ben. the image for chandrila on wookieepedia says "a new dawn, join the new republic in celebrating the beginning of this glorious new era." it felt right to call this raising dawn as they had returned to leia's home, to raise the ex storm trooper kids.


End file.
